Poem #8 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

                           What is it?

No Doctor, the pounding prowess of my headache

cannot be a sign of exhaustion.

It might be
a Disease of a chronic nature

that first lurks in the Bowels and Kidneys,

slowly compounding its scientific scheme

secretions suppressed and fluids corrupted,

foul humors pooled like lakes of Dropsy cooled

in the woods and fields of my glandular system.

Now that you mention it

I can feel the disturbance of Dyspepsia

oozing comfortably in its Liver Laboratory

raising levels of biliousness and blood acidity

CAUTION GENERAL DEBILITY

with the flick of a pulsating crimson toggle,

Constipation and Heartburn discharge.

As we speak
Encephalitis with his spindly fingers
zips between my neural synapses
vaulting along my Spinal Cord circuitry,
cutting wires disguised as Nerves to send
electrons zooming down ganglion highways
Meninges inflate with a sputter of sparks.

At this very moment

Erysipelas creeps right under my skin

a matron with no matchless medicine

prodding awake pimples and old sores

blowing in the ear of tawny Jaundice,

who rouses with a blistering roar

to sow salt rheum in red furrows of rosacea.

Not insomnia, but a simple case of  hypochondria?

Well Doctor, I diagnose you with denial.

                                               --by Talia Bean